Spending an afternoon drinking coffee at a sidewalk cafe with good company or a good book is all I ever want to do, and to do it here in Piazza San Marco at Caffè Florian with an orchestra behind me was a dream.
Caffè Florian
Daniela Andrade
As soon as she started playing, before she even sang her first word, there was a sense of serenity. There’s a beauty and grace that exudes from her, her manner, her music. This concert was originally scheduled for November, but she lost her voice; I’m so glad she came back to Philly to finish off her North American tour!
Bleachers – 2.5/12
There’s something satisfying about the geometry of bleachers. And there’s something about empty bleachers. That same something as empty parking lots and playgrounds at night. These liminal spaces where reality is altered. I think I like these places so much because it feels as if the world has paused and I’ve taken a step away from it. It feels like I have enough space to breathe, deeply. To think, about things that are important, about things that aren’t. A place where it feels like the next thing is so far away that I don’t need to trouble myself with it. Provided I haven’t been binging Criminal Minds before entering this liminal space, otherwise I’d be totally freaked out!
Heart over head – 2/12
I was brainstorming what I could do for my February photoshoot, and thought that it’d be fun to make it festive. I’m not big on Valentine’s Day, like, at all (it’s a fake holiday!!!), except for the excuse to eat cookies and chocolates, but it has some motifs that I thought could be interesting to work with. I wanted to use the motifs as objects rather than themes, and not get too cheesy with it.
We had originally planned to do this photoshoot the weekend before Valentine’s Day so that I could get these photos up during the week of Valentine’s, but that weekend turned out to be busier than we thought it’d be, so we rescheduled. And anyway, the snow storm was going on just two days before our scheduled photoshoot, so if we had done the photoshoot then, we’d have had to maneuver around muddy slush, which would have been inconvenient.
A Cast of Vultures by Judith Flanders
– I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. –
To be published by St. Martin’s Press on 21 Feb 2017
Goodreads | Amazon
Usually sharp-witted editor Sam Clair stumbles through her post-launch-party morning with the hangover to end all hangovers. Before the Nurofen has even kicked in, she finds herself entangled in an elaborate saga of missing neighbours, suspected arson and the odd unidentified body. When the grisly news breaks that the fire has claimed a victim, Sam is already in pursuit. Never has comedy been so deadly as Sam faces down a pair from Thugs ‘R’ Us, aided by nothing more than a CID boyfriend, a stalwart Goth assistant and a seemingly endless supply of purple-sprouting broccoli.
Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin
– I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. –
To be published by St. Martin’s Press on 21 Feb 2017
Goodreads | Amazon
‘Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.
That is an imaginary definition.’
If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?
In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.
From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.